To: Members, Professional Development Committee
FROM: Glenn Town
DATE: 1/25/2012
RE:Sabbatical Report
Members,
Please accept the following as my overview of the work I did during my sabbatical from spring 2009. This was only my second sabbatical in my 30 years as a college professor. Almost all of these years included large administrative responsibilities, so I’ve never felt justified in leaving those administrative posts for an entire semester. This was not the case during this leave however, as Chris Milner ably assumed the role as Kinesiology Chair.
My sabbatical proposal was in two parts. The main emphasis was a book project that began with the title: Being at Home in the Body: The Christian and the Body Image Dilemma. This project has been a longstanding interest of mine, dating back to 1987. At that time I was at Wheaton College and as part of a faith and learning requirement for promotion and tenure I wrote a paper entitled “Toward a Balanced Body Image: a Christian’s Perspective”. The uniqueness I brought to the subject was from the perspective as an Exercise Physiologist and a Christian.
In the summer of 2007 I was given the opportunity to share this perspective in an article that appeared in the Westmont College Magazine entitled “Being at home in the Body”. The response from this article encouraged me to consider expanding this work into book form. So in the spring of 2009 I began to pursue this idea in earnest.
I began by reviewing books and articles related to body image written both from a Christian and secular perspective. The place where I felt my greatest contribution could be made was to identify body image issues related to boys and men. Three books have been written specifically toward body image issues related to the male. They are: Anderson, Cohn, Leigh and Holbrood’s Making Weight: Men’s Conflicts with Food, Weight, Shape and Appearance; Pope, Phillips and Olivardia’s The Adonis Complex: The secret crisis of male body obsession and Luciano’s Looking Good: Male Body Image in Modern America. (A more complete annotated bibliography of the texts reviewed for this book was submitted to the PDC on 11/27/07.) None of these books attempted any faith integration into their writing.
Christian book publishers now consider unsolicited manuscripts only through clearing houses such as Manuscriptsubmissions.com and Christianwritersguild.com. So in March 2009 I submitted a manuscript proposal to Christianmanuscriptsubmissions.com entitled My Temporary Home: The Body, Faith, and Maleness.
The Table of Contents was:
Introduction: Whose body ideal is it?
Understanding the body: Cooperating with the body’s defense of weight change
Body distortions: The clinical conditions facing men
You ARE ideal: Accepting the body God has given you
The ideal in balance: Proper exercise
The ideal in balance: Proper eating
Our aging body
Helping our sons develop a healthy body image
Once a proposal is submitted, member organizations review all submissions and make contact with authors if interested. I received one publisher’s interest but it did not develop into a book contract. The manuscript proposal remained active for six months, but no other interest was garnered from this book idea. I would be pleased to provide a copy of this book proposal if interested.
The rest of my sabbatical work focused on two other projects. The first was to investigate reestablishing a Kinesiology Off-Campus program to compliment our successful Kinesiology Europe Mayterm program. Previously, we offered two Kinesiology Mayterm Guatemala programs – Mayterms 2002 and 2004. These programs reflected more of a “mission trip” focus than an academic experience. My challenge was to explore the creation of an eight-unit experience similar to our Kinesiology Europe Mayterm program. Through my investigation it became apparent that the best fit for a Kinesiology program would be one that had a public health emphasis. Organizations such as Doctors Without Borders, MAP International and World Vision are well established in disadvantaged countries with infrastructures that we could likely tap into. But our department does not have the student interest in a career in public health at this time. And, currently we only offer a two-unit Public Health class and a two-unit Clinical Nutrition class that would seem appropriate for such an off-campus experience.
The second project focused on enhancing my Human Nutrition course. I teach this course to an average of seventy students a year. The work generated from my book project enhanced my body image lecture for both this course and our Fit for Life course. The lectures in these courses now include a greater emphasis on the body image issues facing men. I also developed a new lecture entitled Politics of Food and Nutrition for these classes. Marion Nestle’s book Food Politicsserved as the foundation of this effort. To add, I attended a lecture by Dr. Nestle which was hosted by UCSB.
It was disappointing to not have received a contract for my book. But what was even more frustrating was to not receive feedback over the manuscript proposal. As mentioned, Christian book publishers no longer accept unsolicited proposals. And in doing so, writers lose the opportunity for their work to be evaluated. This is unfortunate as it leaves me with little direction and/or incentive to continue with this writing idea.
I presented my sabbatical report at the faculty forum on Thursday 1/19/2012.